We all know the story of Schrödinger’s cat, half-alive, half-dead, existing in its sealed box in this dual state, awaiting a glance from outside to determine its fate. The story not only illustrates the counterintuitive role of measurement in quantum mechanics, but also how the preservation of quantum properties, which dominate at atomic scales (even at room temperature), become less familiar and even absurd for large multi-particle objects. Building computer chips that can take advantage of quantum coherence and entanglement to allow improvements in computation and simulation is much like building the sealed box for the cat. The challenge is to permit large many-particle systems to selectively interact with the outside world without too quickly destroying the quantum coherence that makes them work. This talk provides an overview of various efforts worldwide to design and build quantum information processing systems on semiconductor chips.